Deliberately Irreverent

Some people manage to fit more into their list of achievements than seems reasonable. Take, for instance, British-born Anthony Haden-Guest: journalist, art critic, soldier, amateur boxer, war correspondent, escapee from a WWII internment camp, and cartoonist. He also wrote The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco, and the Culture of the Night, and numerous other books.>>READ MORE

Assume Nothing!

Anna Khachatryan's welcoming pop surreal

Friendly Disturbance

by Noah Berlatsky

Anna Khachatryan's welcoming pop surreal

Anna Khachatryan's work encapsulates a blend of fine art, pop culture, and fashion. Though she hails from Armenia, her photographs and videos are set mostly in globalized, iconic, commodified spaces, as if she's engaged in off-kilter, broken branding exercises. Her photographic series "People Toys," designed by Khachatryan herself and photographed by her regular collaborator Sona Mongol Mkrtchyan, features three individuals in dark clothes and Mickey Mouse masks. They clamber around on playground equipment with an alley in the background. In one scene, garbage cans overflow in the distance as one Mickey stands on a jungle gym and the two others flank her, holding on, everyone's mask smiling with adisturbing, unholy cheer.>>READ MORE

Urban Images through a Native Eye

by Jack Raplee

When one thinks of New York City photography, the mind typically envisions depictions of Times Square, Central Park, the Empire State Building etc. While such imagery is fine for tourist brochures and websites, it hardly captures the vast dynamic of the five borough metropolis that makes the Big Apple unique among American cities. As with any cultural experience, New York is best understood by the people who live here. This is the true spirit of Joe Raskin's photography.>>READ MORE

Photographer Eric Almas

Alec Monopoly, Art Provocateur, Tags TAG Heuer in Miami

by Jack Raplee

Banksy is so "yesterday's news." Alec Monopoly brings street art to a new level as the recently-named, "Art Provocateur" for TAG Heuer. The street artist, who has assumed the persona of the suave banker character from the popular board game, Monopoly, has been bringing his unique blend of NYC-inspired "graffiti" to the west coast since 2008, coinciding with the global economic downturn from which recovery has been slow.

Recognizing Monopoly's talent, Jean-Claude Biver, CEO of TAG Heuer and President of the LVMH Watch Division, brought him on as Art Provocateur for his signature style and millennial appeal. Monopoly's first installation in this new role was a 50 foot mural at the Mondrian Hotel in Miami unveiled at Art Basil in November to widespread local and celebrity acclaim. This unique installation will be on full display until November 2017, and if Alec Monopoly's "tag" works as planned, additional praise for his work should follow along with renewed and broadened recognition of the TAG Heuer brand.

The Future That Never Came

Artist David Kramer Laments The Optimism of a Bygone Era

by Simon Constable

New York-based artist David Kramer says he’s always felt like an outsider. “That’s partly to do with being dyslexic, and not doing well at school,” he says. It didn’t stop him though. He’s exhibited at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and you’ll find his work in private collections around the world. While Andy Warhol’s Elvis and Marilyn held a mirror up to America’s obsession with celebrity, Kramer’s looks at the disconnect between the advertising industry’s promises of the fabulous-life versus the reality. READ MORE>>

Tango: The Artist Who’s Introducing the West to Therapeutic Comics

by David Grasso

Already a star with a significant social following in China, the cartoonist known by the moniker Tango is now showcasing his talents all over the world. His simplistic, but thought provoking drawings are often humorous, and capture the oddities of modern life. A self-described visual storyteller, his work is intended to make stress-out salaried folk see the primitive beauty of our existence. READ MORE>>

Defining Pintography with Marlene Luce Tremblay

Defining Pintography with Marlene Luce Tremblay

by Simon Constable

French Canadian artist Marlene Luce Tremblay didn’t always work with bright colors. She started off taking black and white photos. “That was back in the 1980s using film to make portraits,” she says.

That's not so much the case lately. If black and white pictures can be simple and sometimes stark, then she’s gone to the other end of the spectrum producing works that are nothing if not bright and filled with vibrant color. Neither are they small. Canvases typically span 37 by 52 inches, she says and adds that they are nice for taking on the art show circuit.

She dubs this combination of photos and paint on canvas, "Pintography." “I really love playing with the colors,” she says. “It's easier to put it on canvas than on photo paper.”

In 2004 she was invited to do work for the Egyptian government. That seems to have been a major turning point in terms of her approach to composition, and maybe a love affair with the region.

“What I show is mostly from my travels – it’s whatever brings intensity and the light on objects,” she says. “In nature it might be that a simple leaf brings inspiration.”

But perhaps more important than that, is that the techniques she employs fit with the subject matter. “The techniques of pintography itself allows me to replicate a key characteristic of Arab civilizations: their unique combination of great antiquity and thriving modernity,” she states on her website.

Her work has been exhibited in Montreal, London, Cairo, Tunis, Toronto and New York, as well as other places.

When she’s not creating art she’s employed at the United Nations press office of the Secretary General. It’s a position she’s held since 2009 when she moved to New York.

Richard Taittinger Gallery

BY DOUGLAS GRAY

Finding Beauty in the Scars

RENE ROMERO SCHULER

There is almost a haunting optimism in the art of Rene Romero Schuler. Shadowy, non‐descript figures pervade her paintings, yet the take‐away is anything but negative, frightening or eerie. For Schuler, the underlying beauty of the human experience, amidst hardships, pain, suffering and various imperfections is wonderfully communicated in her work. READ MORE>>